


bird hands aren't meant for holding

by Ailurus_Fulgens



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Platonic Cuddling, Touch-Starved, get some therapy. or talk it out with your two friends that works too, he needs therapy, someone help davesprite out
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-13
Updated: 2020-09-03
Packaged: 2021-03-01 21:21:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23633785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ailurus_Fulgens/pseuds/Ailurus_Fulgens
Summary: Davesprite feels alone on the Battleship. Someone should probably help him out with that.
Relationships: Davesprite & Jade Harley, Davesprite & John Egbert, Davesprite & John Egbert & Jade Harley, John Egbert & Jade Harley
Comments: 20
Kudos: 57





	1. Chapter 1

It is extremely difficult to do regular teen things when your fingers have deadly weapons on them.

It would be really great if, say, you needed to debone a fish, murder a deer, open letters, or get a sick new internship at the local less-than-luxury sushi restaurant downtown (you know, the one you’re pretty sure failed health inspection?) but you aren’t trying to do any of those things.

You’re trying to play video games.

See, there’s some teen things that sprites happen to be exempt from. Picking at your face? Nah dog, pimples are regular human shit, neither birds nor game constructs need that in their lives. Texting is basically right out, since your talons would absolutely obliterate any phone screen, and sending your BFF messages on Pictochat from your pale pink DS Lite is out of the question. Video games happen to require a certain amount of hand-eye coordination, dexterity, and an ability to not fuck up the goddamn controller as you play Mario Kart against yourself. You have two of those skills, but not the other.

(You also happen to lack the ability to not caw when you get hit with a red shell, but that’s not important right now.)

Be Davesprite. Get tired of this shit and put down the goddamn controller. 

Yeah, you do that, tossing the piece of shit Wii remote against the wall and- Instantly feel bad about it. Sorry, little dude, didn’t mean to take that out on you. You bend down and gently put it back into the bin where it belongs. The other remote controls all have scratches on them that perfectly match the placement of your talons, and you have to consciously think about not feeling guilty. You worry the inside of your mouth a little with your teeth and leave the room, skedaddling back to your nest where you belong, and hoping you don’t bump into any of the other residents of this sorry excuse for an interstellar cruise ship. 

You’re already lucky that the game room seems to be a hideaway reserved exclusively for you. Earlier in your voyage, Jade tried to hole you and John up in there to play Sorry! and the Game of Life and Monopoly, but after a few too many rounds losing at Candyland John refused to play against her. You managed to pull the codes for the Wii and accouterments out of a dream bubble of your (other Dave’s?) apartment in Houston, the cityscape stuck endlessly looping through the seconds just before the meteors struck. You still remember the delicate way you had to pick up caseless discs off the floor and shelves by the TV, careful not to scratch them with your talons. Right now, you flex those talons firmly against what remains of the meat of your palms, twisted into flatter, more avian planes.

You abscond from the game room and begin your trek back towards your usual hideaway- Your nest, hidden within a secret space, tucked away where your shipmates would never think to look. You catch your mind wandering as you half-daydream about pillows and soft things, crow instincts cawing at you in the back of your head about  _ ‘the nest! You have to build the nest!’  _ It’s annoying, that bird conscience (ha, cawnscience) gnawing away at what’s left of your human sanity, but it has its points. That nest is fucking fantastic. It’s so fantastic that you flat out forget where you are while you think about it and almost walk smack into John Egbert. He loses his grip on his popcorn bowl and you catch it in one even sweep of a clawed hand, pleased at how remarkably little you spill. He whines at you anyways.

“Dave Sprite, watch where you’re going!” You only now realize that he’s clutching his Ghostbusters box set against his chest with his other hand. Popcorn.  _ Movies.  _ You keep your expression as stoic as possible as it dawns on you that Egbert was having a movie night  _ without inviting you.  _ You push the popcorn bowl back into his free arm. 

“I was watching where I was going, I just wasn’t watching you. I might have eyes like a hawk, but I can’t focus on all that shit at once, you know? Gotta focus it all up, hone in on what’s really important, like getting back to my secret Strider cave.”

John’s eyebrows furrow, getting that little crease right in between them that keeps you up at night. “You don’t have a cave, you have a hidden broom closet where you hide when you don’t want to talk to us. Those are really different.”

“Start naming differences. I’m timing you right now.  _ Literally  _ right now, the clock is counting down in my head, you have sixty seconds, on your mark, get set-”

“Secret caves are for doing cool things, all you do in yours is sulk! I don’t have time for this, Dave Sprite, I have to get to movie night!” He hugs his DVD collection a little tighter. You blink behind your shades and cock your head.

“So is this like… A regular occurrence now? You get together and have a little tea party over some cheesy 80’s movies and everyone watches you bawl your eyes out singing along to the soundtrack?” You get a delightfully red color to appear on his cheeks, it really suits him. You forgot that John could even be  _ associated  _ with colors other than blue.

“Every Thursday night we watch something! It was my turn to pick this week, so I picked both Ghostbusters!”

“Every Thursday night,” you echo, completely deadpan. Realization creeps across John’s face.

“You didn’t know?”

“Nah. Seems like my all-knowing game powers don’t extend to when the players have weekly get-togethers to watch movies and eat snacks. The whole in-game events calendar got fucked as soon as we went off the grid to begin with, so maybe I  _ am  _ supposed to know, and SBURB just forgot to add me to that particular Facebook group.”

“Oh,” he says, and he lets silence hang between you for a moment. “...Did you want to come? I promise Ghostbusters is better than the video game.”

You wait a few beats for dramatic effect, secretly enjoying the way he’s looking at you. Like he’s really focused on you and cares what you’re about to say, that’s really cute. You pop that mental soap bubble. “Nah,” you say again, and you try not to feel weird when his expression falls a little. “You and Jade and the consorts have fun watching movies. I’ll just fuck off and go do sprite shit.”

“You can come anyways if you get bored-!” He calls after you, but you’re already halfway down the hallway, flying away from him and the sinking feeling inside your chest.


	2. Chapter 2

Your nest is tucked away in the highest place in the interior of the ship. You’re pretty much Phantom of the Opera-ing it up in here, except you’re above all the action instead of below it. You could drop a chandelier on anybody at any time, except you don’t have a chandelier and your voice isn’t really suited to musical theatre anymore.

...Not that it was in the first place. It’s a good thing there’s no one around to hear your internal monologue, especially if it’s this stupid. You’re not thinking about this anymore, it’s stupid. Your nest is more than enough to distract you, considering your birdbrain is nagging you about it being misshapen. Right now, it’s sitting in the sturdiest, most sheltered spot you’ve got: An empty hollow in between game-generated portions of the ship. It’s dark and warm, you’re pretty sure it’s close to the engine room, and there’s enough space in the alcove for you to comfortably spread your wing. You could even spread  _ both  _ if you still had the other one, but that isn’t important. What’s important is that you have a perfectly serviceable nest to curl up in, and after some extensive reshaping on your part, it seems circular enough for you to take a quick nap. It’s mostly made of more SBURB constructed fabrics: blankets, pajamas, stolen bedsheets, that kind of thing, whatever you could scrounge up on short notice. You know for a fact that godtier pajamas are self-replicating in an endless flow of color coded fleece, so you have no remorse about immediately snapping up any discarded parts of pajama sets you spot lying around. There are a few more pieces of bedding you stole from dream bubbles, including some of the sheets from your (other Dave’s?) bed at the apartment, which hit you with a mix of homesickness and resentment whenever you cuddle too close to them. They’re currently pressed up against the wall where you won’t notice them as much. 

As you continue to rearrange the interior of the nest, that comfy space in the middle is looking more and more alluring, its siren call crying out to you like an Olive Garden singing to a hungry man with an Unlimited Pasta Pass. You dive right into that buttery soft Italian analogy and curl up into a vaguely bird shaped circle, resting your head on your folded arms and drifting off to sleep. 

Dreams in this space are… weird. When there are no dream bubbles, there are no dreams, and players can no longer access their dream moons from this point. (Your access to Derse was severed long before you actually knew it existed. But it’s fine. You’re not bitter or anything.) The fact that game sprites aren’t technically supposed to dream doesn’t help your conundrum. When you shut your eyes, you see… Nothing. Other people might think this means you get a restful sleep, but the only thing pure silence accomplishes in your head is opening the floodgates on letting your mind wander. Being trapped alone with your own thoughts is arguably worse than any nightmare you can distantly remember having, but the better your nest is and louder the rumble of the battleship’s engines is, the easier time you have actually getting some shut eye. You are dead asleep when your subconscious whispers to you about  _ footsteps,  _ a useful relic from your time growing up in your apartment, always on the lookout for your Bro sneaking up on you.

The footsteps are, of course, not Bro’s. They’re audible in a not-deliberate way, carelessly echoing. You know it’s Jade without even thinking; John doesn’t walk anywhere if he can help it anymore. (You understand the impulse. Walking is for chumps. You ignore the way that sentiment makes you miss your legs regardless.) With a slight incline of your head, you can almost  _ hear  _ the fact that she’s wearing those adorable Mary Jane shoes she likes to wear with her poofiest godtier skirts. As she gets closer, you start to worry about her finding your hiding spot and having to move it, you  _ just  _ made it almost-perfect- But she walks back the way she came, footsteps fading as she goes. You sigh a breath you didn’t realize you were holding and sink back into the nest, running your hands over your feathers to unruffle them. You don’t bother to unpack why you’re scared of the others finding your little sacred spot- They’ve all got rooms of their own on the ship, decked out with all their belongings, but  _ everybody  _ knows where those are. 

Little do you know, Jade’s actually looking for you. 

Be Jade. Fail at trying to find Davesprite.

_ Yeah,  _ you’re already doing that! You’ve been looking everywhere for that guy, but it’s like trying to find a bright orange needle in an already bright orange-and-yellow haystack! It’s like looking for a marshmallow Peep in a vat of candy corn- He’s gotta be rubbing off on you if you’re going on like this. You turn around on your heel and go back the way you came, through winding golden corridors back to the room you and John quarantined off as the designated movie-watching room. John’s already in there, curled up on the couch and messing with the end of his wind sock hood. You plop down on the couch beside you and he looks at you.

“What’s wrong?”

“I can’t find Davesprite,” you sigh, taking your shoes off so you can comfortably tuck your feet up under your skirts, “I really thought it’d be nice to have him here for once! He spends so much time away from us, I worry about him.”

“He’ll be fine,” John decides, “He’s Dave Sprite! He likes to be alone.”

“Being alone isn’t as cool as you think it is, John.”

“Oh, um.” John looks a little sheepish as he remembers your long childhood spent alone on an island in the middle of the ocean. You can see the dots connecting from ‘alone on an island’ to ‘alone on a spaceship,’ but that final lightbulb doesn’t seem to go off. “But he  _ likes  _ being alone.”

“Are you sure?”

“Well, yeah, he’d come hang out with us if he wanted to. You’re not getting tired of me, are you?”

“We’re siblings, I’m allowed to get tired of you, I think that’s part of being siblings.” You sigh and fold your arms, looking at the Ghostbusters menu screen. You’re a little surprised he didn’t just start it without you. “I just can’t help but feel like we should get him to come  _ talk  _ to us. He’s our friend, and we should worry about him!”

“He’s not Dave, though, he’s Dave  _ Sprite.  _ There’s a difference.”

“Is there?” You give him a sideways glance that makes him go quiet again. “You’d be better at looking for him than me, since you can do the windy thing. I haven’t been able to smell him because he  _ mostly  _ smells like game stuff, and that all smells the same to me.”

“Okay,” he mutters, and he hauls the popcorn into his lap. “Can we do that later? I wanted to watch the movies.”

“Sure, but I’m holding you to that, mister!” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> casually doubling the word count dont mind me haha carry on. yall have a good 413? mine was mediocre. all my friends are putting bets on the next big thing happening in may or on 612, yknow, like a normal hs event might do. fingers crossed for that may theory.   
> regards!


	3. Chapter 3

Be John Egbert. Do as your sister asks.

Ugh,  _ fine,  _ but it’s so not fair for her to pull the sister card on you like that! You’ve only known about that for like, a few months at least, so it doesn’t really count, right? 

Right.

Anyways, it’s the following day- Or whatever passes for day in a sunless, skyless void on a spaceship. You’re out wandering the hallways. You’d thought about trying to bring some alchemized birdseed or something to help lure him out, but Jade didn’t think that was a good idea, so you’ve done the best you can by shoving a deck of cards and some regular, human snacks into your sylladex. You're not even expecting to find him, you  _ know  _ he can hide better than almost all of you. There's no way you're just going to stumble into his secret hiding spot all willy-nilly, right? And to be honest, you're really considering just going back to Jade,  _ saying  _ you looked all over the place, and doing whatever it was you were gonna do today.

Which is probably nothing. There's not a whole lot to do around here. Hey, maybe that's why Dave Sprite hides all the time, he keeps the good stuff all to himself! There's some incentive, maybe he's got an XBOX or something in his secret ironic man cave! You pick up the pace and exhale slowly, twisting up and away into the air until you're actually part of it. Jade was right, it's way easier for you to feel everything in the ship when it's all recycled air moving endlessly from room to room. Extending your consciousness to the rest of the air in the ship is simple, and you feel Dave Sprite long before you see him. As far as you can tell, he's managed to get himself tucked up somewhere into one of the big abandoned hallways by the engine block. The location isn't exact, so you figure you should just wander around the area from here. Your feet touch the ground and you realize you have feet again- and that you're in that hallway. You don't really come down here all that much? There isn't a point- the ship seems to take care of itself just fine, it doesn't need you or Jade screwing with the engine stuff. This is close enough to the last place you saw Dave Sprite that you're pretty confident this is where he was headed to.

Standing on the floor looking up, an untrained eye would only see chunks of generated architecture. The ship has these cool buttressy-things supporting the ceiling, all riveted and gold, but it seems like they're more for decoration than anything else. The ceiling in  _ this  _ hall just keeps going up, kind of like a cathedral, and it takes a minute before you actually realize there's a deep hollow up in the back wall. If this  _ were  _ a church, that's probably where the organ would be. Thinking about church briefly makes you think about your Dad, sending a pang of muted grief into your chest even though you know he wasn't religious, but he always seemed to like the idea of best-dressed Sundays and putting on good clothes for no reason.

You ignore the Dad-feelings and kick back off the ground, idly floating up to peer into the pseudo-balcony. To your utter surprise, Dave Sprite isn't in there- There's a big birdy nest, empty, and you wonder if it's still warm. You touch it, finding it still retaining a little heat, and pick up a downy orange feather between two fingers. The whole deck is scattered with them, drawing your attention around the space- Other than a giant bird nest, it looks like he keeps a few snacks up here, as well as an old laptop and some DVDs. You recognize the case for Die Hard, which… Yeah, that checks out. He's got a few other things, too, things you don't expect like Lord of the Rings and Star Wars. He probably only has them because they're long or he's got ironic opinions. 

Pulling yourself away from his weird nest, you wonder where he’s gone off to. 

Be Davesprite. Know where John Egbert is.

He’s in your pad. Casa De Strider. The Stridercave. The nest.

A few choice words come to mind. “ _ Fuck!”  _ is definitely at the top of the list, but  _ “damnit!”  _ is a close second, followed by some more creative phrases that take way too much time and effort to say. You loom further down the corridor, watching his bright blue getup stand out against the yellow-gold of the ship. You watch him press a hand to the soft middle of your nest and you promptly turn around and head back to the game room, ignoring the way the crow in you screams about fighting him for that.

You're not going to fight John. That's a waste of time, you're going to pack all that shit up and move it somewhere else and soon as he leaves. You slink into the game room and curl back up in a bean bag with a Wii remote, not even bothering to turn it on, just… Feeling the buttons with your claws.

You feel like you should be happy someone came to look for you. At the same time, you can't help but feel like he just stumbled across your Strider sanctorum. That this is all pure coincidence, why would he go looking for you in the first place, you're not  _ his Dave,  _ to him you're just Dave  _ Sprite, _ some kind of cheap knockoff Dave, if Dave were a sold-out toy at stores near you, you'd be the much shittier McDonald's happy meal toy. 

You think about McDonald's and feel a little guilty about still craving chicken nuggets. That's probably cannibalism, right? Can birds even-

"Dave?"

Your head jerks up and you see him, leaning into the doorway. He looks… Mildly worried.

"That's copyrighted to someone else, bro, I'm Davesprite," you respond smoothly. You hope it's smooth enough.

"Yeah, sure, uh… What are you doing?"

"Playing some dope ass Wii games circa the year of our lord 2006. What are  _ you _ doing, other than harshin' my flow?"

He's quiet for a second too long. "Your controller's busted," he says softly, and  _ god  _ that makes something in you ache, "The TV isn't even on. Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," you snap, and whoops, that wasn't cool enough, he knows something's up. Bro would kill you for that kind of a slip up. Something in the back of your head reminds you he'd do worse than kill you at the same time something  _ else  _ laughs at your nostalgic jab. You continue regardless. "Everything's cool in Stridertown, positively peachy. If I was a fruit I'd be- Shit, I'd just be orange, nevermind. Whatever. What do you want."

"Jade sent me to find you, she's- We're both worried."

Oh, both of them. Sure. Totally believable.

"Well," you say, tossing the remote aside, "You found me. Keep ridin' on out, cowboy."

"Why are you avoiding us?"

Your blood runs cold. "I'm not avoiding you."

"Jesus, Dave Sprite, how stupid do you think I am? I know I can be kind of oblivious sometimes, but being an airhead comes with the territory! Jade's worried about you!  _ I'm  _ worried about you! We don't see you for weeks on end and Jade's  _ right,  _ this can't be good for you! Did we hurt your feelings? Are you mad at us? I want to know what's going on with you, Dave-"

"I'm not  _ your Dave! _ " Your claws dig into your palms. John stares at you. "I'm  _ not.  _ No matter how much you pretend that I'm the real thing, I'm  _ not.  _ I'm a poor substitution for the guy you like. You'll all be happier in the long run if you just- Wait until you can see him, and quit tiding yourself over with me. I'm not worth it, I'm not- I'm not worth your  _ concern,  _ I'm  _ just  _ a part of the game." Your face feels wet. You ignore that. "I'm not even a person anymore, so just… Do yourself a solid and quit worrying about it. Leave me alone."

John looks like he's going to say something, reaching out with one of his hands, but you don't want to listen. You push off the ground and soar out of the room, flying up and away into the deepest parts of the ship. Your nest is compromised now, you can't stay there, you'll pack everything up and move it later. 

It's fine.

You wipe hastily under your shades and find your tears are the same neon orange as the rest of you. 

Be John.

Well, shit. That didn't go very well, huh?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh hey. didnt see you there  
> its your best friend ao3 user ailurus underscore fulgens comin at you live from... quarantine  
> sorry about there being no hugs in this chapter i really planned on some sicknasty huggin action that would put even squiddles to shame but thats gonna have to wait everyone is being too edgy so maybe youll get hugs in chapter four. whos to say! not me even though im the one writing this  
> anyways stay safe out there  
> regards


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> davesprite gets real sad in this one so buckle in

You go back to Jade, who’s been waiting for you down in the common area you watch movies in. Now that you’re thinking about it, you think it’s a little silly you have seperate rooms for video games and watching movies. It makes you feel like a really rich person.

Jade looks up at you and all of those fun mental diversions shatter. 

“Did you find him?” She asks, and you nod, feeling your heart sink. She looks so happy. You don’t really want to tell her, but you know you have to. 

“He ran off again,” you say as gently as possible, and that look of hopeful joy falls away from her face in an instant. “I tried to talk to him, but um… He said he wasn’t worth it? And that he’s not a person anymore? So we should just leave him alone.” You see her open her mouth to respond at that, and continue before she can say that he’s not right. “I know, I’m not agreeing with him! He’s- He’s Dave _ too _ , it’s taken me too long to realize that. He’s really hurting right now, I want to help him, but I don’t know  _ how. _ ”

She pats the couch next to her and you basically collapse into it, arms curling around her for a hug. You relax a little when she pets your hair back comfortingly. “I want to help him too, dingus. I just… I don’t know how either, I wish Rose were here, she’d probably know some kind of psychology explanation and tell us how we should talk to him.”

“Dearest Harley-Egberts,” you say, doing your best Rose impression, even though it’s muffled into Jade’s shoulder. “I  _ cannot  _ assist you with this endeavor. I am  _ too  _ busy writing my wizard fiction. Albus Cobblepot has just cast a most irreversible curse on Sir Fitzroy Applecrab, and it can  _ only  _ be reversed with a homosexually charged wizard battle…”

Jade giggles, which was the intended effect. You can be pretty funny when you want to be! In fact, you think you’re  _ hilarious,  _ even if that prankster’s gambit gets the best of you sometimes. You feel a little better with the hugging and the joking, so you pull back and try to get serious again. 

“...I still don’t know if I should go after him or not.”

“Well,” Jade says, considering your options, “If  _ I  _ was Davesprite, I think maybe I need a hug and some tea and two friends to make me realize I’m making things worse for myself. If we wait for him to come to us, that’s never going to happen, we’ve already learned that from the past… however long we’ve been on this ship. I’ve barely seen him!”

“He’s been going back and forth between his nest and the game room by the engine block,” you say, and Jade gasps. 

“He has a nest?”

“Yeah, it’s kind of adorable, it’s got all his stuff in it. It looks really comfy.”

“Maybe that’s what we should do! If we make a nest and show him how much we care about him, maybe he’ll realize we’re being serious! It’ll be like a surprise present!”

That actually sounds like a good idea. 

You’re really lucky you’re on this ship with Jade. 

Be Davesprite.

You don’t really want to be anything, much less Davesprite, but you’re Davesprite. You’ve already taken your nest apart and moved it into the furthest point from where you know John and Jade spend all their time.

All their time except for when they come trying to bother you. 

...Who are you kidding, it’s not like you’re doing anything. All you do is sit around in your nest or the game room, feeling sorry for yourself and tearing up controller after controller with your horrible bird talons. (You tried to clip them. You fucked it up, getting more of your gross orange fluids all over the place, and they had the audacity to grow back within the day. You hated that.) Right now you’re curled up in a ball in the unorganized mess that was your nest, now dismantled and shoved into an unused storage room.

It’s dark in here, which is good, and it’s cramped enough to make you feel like you’re safely hidden. It’s a small comfort. You ball your fists up in sheets and godtier fleece, your tail looping around yourself like a snake’s coils. 

You can’t cry. You  _ won’t  _ cry.

...Your face feels wet in an act of treachery that you won’t forget, a kind of betrayal that makes your heart ache with your guardian standing over you, intoning some old, monosyllabic wisdom about how  _ boys don’t cry.  _ You’re not really a boy anymore, though- You’re a bird-human-sprite fusion. If Bro could see you right now, regardless of the crying, you think he probably wouldn’t even look at you.

(You  _ hope  _ he wouldn’t look at you. Some small part of you whispers that he  _ would  _ look, staring at you through those shitty anime shades, drawing his katana-)

You curl into a tighter ball as a sob escapes your throat, sounding more like a bird than a person. Your talons dig into the blankets around you and you realize there’s nothing left to do but cry and sleep, in that order, so you get right on those.

Everything is horrible.

You wish you were with your friends.

You wish you were  _ you,  _ and you drift into an uneasy slumber. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> short chapter. sad chapter. whoops   
> due to my strong personal convictions i wish to stress that this is going to get better you just have to hold on a little longer bro i promise ill get us out of here


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the hugs finally happen

There’s a noise. 

It is… quiet. Your head’s still fogged up with sleep as you push yourself to sit up and think about it, obviously you’d be dead if you took this long back in Bro’s apartment, but the warm walls of the battleship quickly remind you that that’s not where you are right now. You shake your head like it’ll shake the sleep out of your head, but that noise comes again. It’s a knock, at the door of your secret cubby hole, quiet but insistent.  _ Shave-and-a-haircut. Two _ \- 

You open it before it finishes. It’s John. Of course it’s John. He looks at you with this… expression, one you’re not sure how you feel about, especially turned in your direction. He blinks at you with those big blue eyes, full of hope and worry, and he clears his throat a little.

“...I, um… I came to check on you.”

“What’s there to check on about,” you say, and you internally wince at how harsh your voice comes out, rubbed a little raw around the edges from cawing and crying. John looks at you like you might be crazy. 

“You- Well-” He sighs. “Nevermind. We’ve got a surprise for you.”

Now  _ that  _ catches you off guard. “A surprise-?”

“Yeah, you help you feel better!” He beams at you and offers you his hand. “C’mon, it’s really cool!” 

“Not blowing your own horn at all, are you, Egbert,” you say, partially to distract yourself from the fact that you’re already reaching forward to clasp his hand with your talons, careful to not press your claws into his skin. You’re not sure if his hands have always been this warm and soft. You want to stop thinking about that immediately. 

Lucky for you, John uses his freaky windy thing to help get you from your hideaway out into the more travelled areas of the ship, dragging you into what passes for a living room around here. Jade is there, surrounded by… What has to be all of the pillows and blankets on the entire battleship. She opens her arms, beaming just like John. The family resemblance is uncanny. 

“Surprise! We made you a big nest!” 

“Jade did most of the work,” John murmurs next to you, sheepishly, “She’s better at pillow forts than me, so she just… Did it…”

“Aww, you helped me get supplies, silly. Now c’mon, come get comfy, we made this for you!”

You blink behind your shades, dumbfounded. “You… Built a nest? Why?” You’re distantly aware of John’s warm, soft hand tugging you gently over to where Jade’s standing, and since you don’t have legs, you float along behind him like a balloon tied to a kid’s wrist at Disney World. Jade very gently takes your other hand, and her grip is warm and soft too. She looks up at you.

“...Even if you don’t let yourself see it, we wanted to let you know that we love you. You’re our  _ friend, _ Dave, and we can’t let you just… suffer by yourself. So I thought we could share this with you, to help prove that we’re here for you.” She tilts her head at you in a distinctly doglike way. “Is it working?”

“I don’t know,” you say carefully, still trying to take all of this in. “Gimme a minute to process the sudden outpouring of love for bootleg Daves and we’ll see-”

“You’re not a  _ bootleg,  _ Dave!” John squeezes your hand a little. “You’re just as real as the other Dave!”

Oh, that’s weird. You give him a  _ look  _ when he says that, blinking at him behind your orange shades, feeling like that white dude everyone’s always sharing pictures of. “Since when?”

“Since Jade talked some sense into me. She’s uh, right about a lot of things, we could probably stand to be communicating more about our feelings. Right?” He looks at Jade, who nods approvingly. You feel a little weird, like Jade’s not supposed to be the emotionally intelligent one here, but John’s usually acting like he’s still twelve, and you’re- Supposed to be too cool for emotional intelligence. Emotions are for chumps. You’re the proud mayor of Coolsville, a place where feelings aren’t allowed, which is why you need to stop feeling soft and sappy  _ right now,  _ even if Jade and John are holding both of your freakish bird claw-hands and looking at you with their big round eyes and their cute little bucktoothed, hopeful smiles. You give in and squeeze their hands a little.

“...well, fine. Show me the ropes of this emotional mumbo-jumbo. Take me to feelings college, get me a Bachelor’s in Communications.”

They promptly pull you down into the nest. You land with a soft  _ oof  _ as your sprite anti-gravity basically cancels out, anchoring you solidly to the floor. Jade and John sit on either side of you like they’re protecting you from the rest of the room, which is really funny for some reason. You giggle a little, still holding their hands, and pretend you didn’t just do that. Jade, on the other hand, doesn’t yes-and your little improv bit about not giggling, tilting her head and giggling back at you. 

“What was  _ that,  _ Dave? That wasn’t a super cool chuckle!”

“Dude,” you say, pretending to be offended. “Totally not cool, that was definitely a smooth chuckle. You better get those dog ears checked, I think you’re hearin’ things.”

“No, she’s right,” and  _ ugghhh,  _ John’s just gotta add to this misery. “That was definitely some kind of giddy laugh. If you ask me, I might even call it… a giggle?”

“A chortle,” you try to correct, but they’re both intent on calling you the fuck out. You groan and collapse backwards, bringing them both with you with a yelp each. “Fine, a giggle. A cute little birdy giggle. Does that make you happy, hearing me admit that out loud, in real life, with my real, actual mouth?”

Jade’s on your right, so she’s trying to not squish your one remaining wing now that you’ve pulled her horizontal. “It does, but- Dave, how should I lie here?”

“‘S fine,” you sigh, and shift it under her, bringing it up around her shoulders like the best blanket in this whole nest. John makes a disappointed noise on your other side, and you glance at him. “What?”

“I don’t get a turn?” Oh god, his face. He’s like a neglected puppy.

“Bro, you’ll get a turn later, I’ve only got the one. Deal with it.”

“Sorry,” he murmurs, like he feels bad about bringing up your missing limb. You sigh and pull him in with an arm instead, until his head is rested against your shoulder. 

“Bro, it’s chill, the wings are just decorative. It doesn’t really matter if I have both or whatever, I’ve still got  _ hands,  _ and I can still fly around and shit.” You’ve got two Harleyberts surrounding you. You’re totally flanked. It’s so difficult to be grumpy when you’re being  _ cuddled,  _ all the bird-based parts of your brain are making excited noises about being in a big nest with your two best friends. Jade sighs happily and snuggles up into your side, draping an arm across your waist, and John mirrors her movements.

“...I missed having sleepovers,” he says, and you fuck up his hair affectionately, worrying a little less about your talons now.

“Sleepovers are for nerds, Egderp.”

“At least you two got to  _ have  _ sleepovers, there was nobody other than me and Bec and Grandpa to build pillow forts with! Do you have any idea how unhelpful dogs are at pillow fort construction?”

John looks up at her and makes a face. “Isn’t Bec a First Guardian?”

“Yes, but he’s not the First Guardian of  _ pillow forts.  _ He kept accidentally destroying them.”

“Well,” you sigh, both arms firmly around both friends, “Neither of us are giant white dogs with vendettas against super cool hangouts, no jerks allowed, invitation only. This safe haven of cuddly gods and a bird man has strict rules about who can enter.”

Things are quiet for a long moment, other than the breathing of your two friends and the rumble of the ship as it continues its journey. You sigh and close your eyes behind your shades, grateful for the solid weight of the humans on either side of you. Your tail’s coiled securely around the lower half of one of Egbert’s legs, keeping you securely tethered to the floor, even if your weird floaty game shit decides to fuck you over. 

“...Did you have sleepovers before this, Dave?” Comes Jade’s soft voice, and you resist the twitch that tries to rattle out of you. 

“No. Not really.”

“Oh,” she says, one of her hands softly working through the ruff of feathers around your neck and collarbones. It feels nice. It’s easier to focus on that than on Bro looking at you, than watching other children at the elementary school go home to birthday parties and sleepovers with their best friends. Jade knows when she should leave something alone, so she does, but you’re still restless about it.

“I didn’t have friends other than you,” you say, and now both of them hold their breath. You exhale slowly, even though you don’t need to. “Bro didn’t… go in for that kinda thing. He’s not- He  _ wasn’t  _ the type to crawl into a pillow fort and watch a shitty movie with you. He’d probably say that shit was for babies, or somethin’. I dunno. I only saw sleepovers in movies.” 

John pats your side reassuringly, smoothing his hand out over your shirt. “...We can have sleepovers until you make up for lost time.” It’s only a handful of words, but that means- Fuck, that means so  _ much. _

You pull the two of them closer in against you, if that’s even possible. It’s so easy to snuggle your face into their matching dark hair, coo like a bird and curl your hands into their shirts, holding them tight so you know how real they are. They squeeze you a little tighter too. You could cry, you love them so much. (Maybe you  _ are  _ crying a little, but neither of them mention that.)

“Yeah,” you say, for lack of better words. “Yeah, that sounds really fuckin’ good.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> bet yall thought those hugs were never gonna fuckin happen huh  
> jokes on you i got you-know-what and pined even harder. hope you enjoyed it holler at me if there are any jarring mistakes in here harshing your flow


End file.
